Summertime Festivals

With summer officially in full swing, there is no shortage of festivals to attend in Southeastern Wisconsin. Take this weekend, for example: Friday through Sunday, Wisconsinites could choose between Greek Fest in West Allis, Strawberry Fest in Cedarburg or Brady Street’s Summer Soulstice. Or, in my case, two out of the three.

The bf and I kicked off our festival-hopping weekend with a trip to the Wisconsin State Fair grounds to check out Greek Fest for dinner Friday night. We split a massive Greek Salad and each ordered gyros and tiropita for the main meal, sitting under a large tent listening to different kinds of music playing from every corner of the festival. I’ll admit, I’m used to bringing home some leftovers at dinner, but I polished that plate off! I couldn’t help myself. It was delicious!

Of course, you can’t go to a festival and leave without getting a treat, so we picked up some baklava sundaes before calling it a night. The baklava was so sweet, and I loved the little crunch it had mixed in with the refreshing ice cream and chocolate syrup. Seriously – if you’re reading this and hadn’t come up with a dinner plan for tonight yet, head over to Greek Fest. Or, if you have a baklava recipe you absolutely love, make it and throw a scoop of ice cream on it! And then share the recipe with me, please!

Saturday morning, we drove to Cedarburg for the Strawberry Festival. I’ll admit, I was not mentally-prepared for the throng of people filling the street, and I certainly didn’t expect the festival to stretch back as far as it did. It was one vendor after the next for blocks, with artists intermingled with restaurant and farm stands. I felt as though I spent half the time there making a mental list of all the food trucks that I needed to try out later this summer since I couldn’t have everything. After settling on a cheeseburger for lunch, I picked up a bowl of strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Oh. My. Gosh.

It was fantastic!

After one bite, you really could understand why the line for the dessert was so long. The stand briefly ran out of strawberries, and despite a little bit of grumbling, no one around me budged. It was absolutely worth the wait.

Of course, we couldn’t leave without buying fresh strawberries from the Strawberry Festival. And I know this is silly, because I buy strawberries from my grocery store all the time, but now that I have this little box of large, fresh, vibrantly red strawberries from Cedarburg, it feels like the possibilities of what I can make are endless – even if I have a finite amount from yesterday. Do I want to make my go-to strawberry-banana smoothie? Do I want to make strawberry-basil infused water? Sangria? Do I take the peach crumb bar recipe I recently used and swap out peaches for berries? Guys, I seriously don’t know. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions and favorite recipes. I need some help on this one!